The Temper Trap proves you shouldn’t judge a mild-mannered band by their music.

Who would have thought that the emotive indie-rock band are not only into skateboarding but miss the sport desperately when thousands of miles away from their home of Melbourne, Australia.

CBS Local caught up to the band about 40 miles outside of Los Angeles while they took in a little of their favorite pastime.

Sitting on a set of stairs designed for skateboarding, smack dab in the middle of the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California, Joseph, Toby, Jonathon and Lorenzo watched jealously as dozens of pro skaters whizzed by. The final preparations were being made for this weekend’s massive Street League competition, an increasingly popular skateboarding event created by Rob Dyrdek.

When asked if the band had any crazy skateboarding stories, they were surprisingly full of stories.

Keyboardist Joseph Greer was first to jump in.

“When I was younger, I was skating a pool at a school and the caretaker came in and ripped my skateboard off me really violently and he was holding it back. I was really pissed off cause he had my skateboard. I was like ‘I gotta get this guy in trouble’ so I got my friend to get his skateboard and smack me on the arm with it so I’d have a big massive cut. So I told the police that the caretaker did it to me. [laughs] And they didn’t even care. He said, ‘You shouldn’t have been skateboarding.'”

Drummer Toby Dundas revealed how he’d been skating a little spot near a roadway.

“I did this little launch off this little lip and at the same time this dude came around the corner doing like 80 miles an hour, almost killed me and I screamed at him. He screeched his car to a halt and came back. He was this little Eastern European 50 year old guy but he was some kind of a boxer. He was like ‘You called me a F***-off?!’ And he started doing these boxing moves. He swings this wild punch which I kinda ducked but he came with this upper cut and got me square in the jaw, this little guy… And kinda by instinct I grabbed my board and just started slamming him kid-style in the ribs. And that was the end of it, he backed off. That was one of those moment where skating can get a bit intense.”

The Temper Trap are in the midst of a brief 12-stop American tour scheduled to play the Hollywood Palladium tonight (June 15) followed by San Fransisco’s famed Warfield Saturday, June 16th. At the time of press a limited number of tickets were still available for both shows.

Temper Trap’s new self-titled album is available at Amazon via Glassnote Records.

Street League Skateboarding tickets are available for this weekend’s event here.